"Wherever we go, there seems to be only one business at hand--that of finding workable compromises between the sublimity of our ideas and the absurdity of the fact of us."
~ Annie Dillard, "An Expedition to the Pole"

("Translation is almost an impossibility because how can you carry into another language the breath of the author, his previous doubts, his intention when he types? It's impossible, but you do what you can. In any case, the work of translation is important, so much so, Saramago says authors make national literatures, but it is the translators who make literature universal... If not for translators, García Márquez would not be García Márquez in Japan, in Finland, or in Russia. That is, he would be who he is, but the Japanese, the Finns, or the Russians who love him would not have had the opportunity of discovery.")

When asked about any unforgettable anecdotes from the process, she replied:

("I remember every book and every article I've translated. I haven't lost even one detail, I haven't forgotten anything--having translated, and by the author's side, living with him, is my treasure, a treasure that doesn't matter to anyone else and which I protect because I enjoy myself with him. An anecdote? A phrase. Carlos Fuentes said it one day, seeing where José works and where I do too. He said: "What luck, the translator in the house" and he said it with such enthusiasm, I was moved when I heard him. I felt very proud.")

“There are those who maintain that you can't demand anything of the reader. They say the reader knows nothing about art, and that if you are going to reach him, you have to be humble enough to descend to his level. This supposes that the aim of art is to teach, which it is not, or that to create anything which is simply a good-in-itself is a waste of time. Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it. We hear a great deal about humility being required to lower oneself, but it requires an equal humility and a real love of the truth to raise oneself and by hard labor to acquire higher standards.” ~ Flannery O'Connor